UPCOMING EVENTS:

Currently there are no CERT classes scheduled. However, the Tuscaloosa County Community Response Team (CERT) Training program expects to establish a firm fall training calendar within the next few weeks. Please check back later for class information once it becomes available.

Now is the time to decide if you would like to participate and learn basic disaster response techniques. The first two CERT classes filled up rapidly in the spring. Once the application process begins for the next class you are urged to signup quickly to make sure you are not left out.

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The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program is all-risk, all-hazard training for the community. This valuable course is designed to help you protect yourself, your family, your neighbors and your neighborhood in an emergency situation. CERT is a positive and realistic approach to emergency and disaster situations where citizens may initially be on their own and their actions can make a difference.

While people will respond to others in need without the training, one goal of the CERT program is to help them do so effectively and efficiently without placing themselves in unnecessary danger. In the CERT training, citizens learn to:

• Manage utilities and put out small fires with basic skills,
• Treat the three medical killers by opening airways,
  controlling bleeding, and treating for shock,
• Provide basic medical aid,
• Search for and rescue victims safely,
• Organize themselves and spontaneous volunteers to be effective,
  and collect disaster intelligence to support first responder efforts.

WHATS INVOLVED? CERT members receive 21 hours (one day a week for seven weeks) of initial training. This course is followed by full-day annual refresher drills. Upon completion of this course, the participants will be able to:

• Describe the types of hazards that are most likely to affect their homes and community.
• Describe the function of CERT and their role in immediate response.
• Take steps to prepare themselves for a disaster.
• Identify and reduce potential fire hazards in their home or workplace.
• While working as a team, apply basic fire suppression strategies, resources, and safety measures to extinguish a burning liquid.
• Apply techniques for opening airways, controlling bleeding and treating for shock.
• Conduct triage under simulated disaster conditions.
• Perform head to toe assessments.
• Select and set up a treatment area.
• Employ basic treatments for various wounds, and apply splints to suspected fractures and sprains.
• Identify planning and size up requirements for potential search and rescue situations.
• Describe the most common techniques for searching a structure.
• Use safe techniques for debris removal and victim extrication.
• Describe ways to protect rescuers during search and rescue.

WHAT IF I HAVE AGE OR PHYSICAL ABILITY CONCERNS?

There are many jobs within a CERT for someone who wants to be involved and help. Following a disaster, CERT members are needed for documentation, comforting others, logistics, etc. Non-disaster related team activities may include keeping databases, developing a website, writing a newsletter, planning activities, helping with special events and organizing exercises and activities.

During CERT classroom training, if one has a concern about doing a skill like lifting, just let the instructor know. You can learn from watching. We would like everyone who wants to go through the training to have an opportunity to participate and learn the skills. CERT educates participants about local hazards and trains them in skills that are useful during disaster and life’s everyday emergencies.

The lessons learned in Mexico City strongly indicated that a plan to train volunteers to help themselves and others, and become an adjunct to government response, was needed as an essential part of overall preparedness, survival, and recovery. As a result CERT began on a small scale on the U.S. West Coast in 1987.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) decided to make the concept and program available to communities nationwide in 1995.

In January 2002, CERT became part of the Citizen Corps, a unifying structure to link a variety of related volunteer activities to expand a community's resources for crime prevention and emergency response.

The need for further expansion of CERT training was further highlighted by problems plaguing the response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. Since its inception in 1978 FEMA has urged citizens to become self-sufficient for a minimum of 72 hours in most disasters and longer for catastrophic events. CERT Teams can help with this self-sufficiency in the hours and days after a major disaster strikes.

As of January 2006, all 50 states, three territories and six foreign countries are using the CERT training. Tuscaloosa County’s CERT Program has been in the works for several months. A Federal Grant to implement the Tuscaloosa County CERT Program was received in November 2005 and plans for instituting the first local classes began to be made.

Other Alabama CERT Programs

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